Cargo Ship Disappears Near Eye of Hurricane

There are reportedly 33 crewmembers on board.

The El Faro, a 735-foot roll on-roll off ro-ro cargo ship, was en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico from Jacksonville, Florida. The television station reports that: “The crew reported the ship had previously taken on water, but that all flooding had been contained”. The Coast Guard said it hasn’t been able to make contact with the crew.

“There are a number of possible reasons for the loss of communications among them the increasing severity of Hurricane Joaquin”, it said. “The US Coast Guard was immediately notified and since then we have been unable to reestablish communication”, the statement read.

Hurricane Joaquin reached Category 4 as it hit the Bahamas on Friday, destroying houses, uprooting trees and unleashing heavy flooding.

Fedor said the El Faro was carrying 294 trailers and automobiles in its hold, in addition to the 391 shipping containers on-deck, as it battled 20 to 30 foot seas. They said they received notification that the ship had lost propulsion near Crooked Island in the eastern Bahamas, one of the islands most battered by the storm.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard has released video of a different Joaquin-related rescue — of 12 mariners who abandoned their sinking cargo ship and crowded into a life raft northwest of Haiti yesterday.

Early Friday, Joaquin essentially stalled over the Bahamas for a second morning.

The center of the storm is now moving north, but forecast to track more northeastward next 12-24 hours as it moves away from the Bahamas, according to Fred Pickhardt at Ocean Weather Services.

The moisture created from those two systems could then flow down from rivers into cities, creating the potential for significant flooding in a few areas.

“We are closely monitoring Nassau now to see where the storm is at first light… since that is where the majority of the population is located”, said Basil Dean of the Bahamas Department of Meteorology.